AUSTIN, Texas -- I don't see how we can call the House "economic
stimulus" package anything but war-profiteering. The bill is a disgrace, and
the usual suspects from Texas -- Tom Delay and Dick Armey -- hold large
responsibility for it.
What happened here, while we were all being exposed to
anthrax-scare 24-7, is that corporate hitchhikers, who got left out of the
earlier tax-cut package in favor of rich people, moved right in for the kill
in the name of patriotism and economic stimulus.
The bill provides big tax cuts for big, profitable
corporations -- IBM, General Motors and General Electric get a total of
$3.27 billion in immediate tax rebate checks. A total of $25 billion in
immediate tax rebates goes to large, profitable corporations, according to
Citizens for Tax Justice. That's twice as much instant rebates to profitable
corporations as the House, by two votes, decided to give the 37 million
low-income families who didn't qualify for the original tax rebate.
Forty-one percent of the new tax cuts go to the richest 1
percent of taxpayers, while the only 7 percent goes to the bottom 60
percent, according to the analysis by Tax Justice. Even more eye-popping
cuts, relative to size, go to a whole slew of Texas corporations, including
TXU, ChevronTexaco, Enron, etc. Dirty work at the crossroads -- or, more
accurately, like the refrain of the country song, "Dead skunk in the middle
of the road, stinkin' to high heaven."
For those who have forgotten where we started with the tax
cuts, the first round, passed in May, was heavily tilted to benefit the rich
and, surprise!, did not provide the needed economic stimulus. Even the
Democrats' notion of a $300 rebate for "everybody" meant only everybody who
made more than about $33,000 a year. That left out a whole lot of
somebodies.
The problem is that four out of five Americans pay more in
payroll taxes than the do in income taxes, so an income tax cut by
definition favors the wealthy. The particularly obnoxious feature of the
Republican "economic stimulus package" is that it is aimed at precisely the
wrong people. Not only does it, again, unfairly benefit the wealthy, but it
leaves out, again, precisely the people who will promptly spend whatever
they get, thus actually providing economic stimulus.
This bill contains so many bad ideas, it's hard to count them
all. It would repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, which discourages
corporations from looking for tax loopholes and shelters. Reducing the
capital gains tax -- now there's a dandy. Three-fourths of the proceeds from
that little sweetheart go the wealthiest 1 percent, and it costs the
treasury $10 billion a year.
President Bush wanted an economic stimulus plan of between $50
billion and $75 billion. This one will cost well over $212 billion. "The
largest corporate tax loophole under current law -- accelerated
depreciation -- would be almost doubled, at an estimated cost of $109
billion over the next three years," says Tax Justice. Incredibly enough, the
Senate Republican bill is even more grotesquely skewed to benefit
corporations and the wealthy, at a total cost of $220 billion. More than
half the proposed Senate cuts would go the richest 1 percent; only 6 percent
would go to the bottom 60 percent.
One of the many troubling aspects of the Republican bills is
that rather than providing an extension of health insurance benefits for the
unemployed, they propose instead to let states shift money from the federal
program designed to provide health insurance for poor children to insurance
for the newly unemployed. Bush himself signed off on this proposal. That's
just great -- let's take money away from poor kids to help those impacted by
terrorist attacks. What a great choice.
Of course, the Senate D's are putting together a completely
different package. But R's are using an old legislative trick. There is
hell's own pressure on the Democrats to cooperate and to compromise these
days: No one wants to hear Congress squabble in the middle of a national
emergency. This thing will be compromised out, but when you start by putting
a ton of weight (or idiot tax cuts) on one side of the see-saw, what happens
is you wind up with half of those idiot cuts and none of the useful ones.
At this rate, we're going to look up from the war against
terrorism to find both our civil liberties and economic justice long gone.
Long term, that's a lot scarier than anthrax.
Speak up, people; speak out. The only way to stop something this
big and bad is for the people themselves to put pressure on Congress. This
is just as much a matter of patriotism as enlisting in the Marines.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2001 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
